free verse poetry

November 17, 2013January 12, 2016

new age nostalgia 2117 2080 2522 THEY WILL NOT WONDER

When we’re 80, we can show our grandkids our youth through pictures, videos, and statuses instead of mere words.

They will read our mistakes, instead of imagining them. They will see our triumphs in full colour. They will flip through our lives with a summons of their voice-activated, brain implanted iDevice. They will eat their purple and yellow striped aspara-ocolli and ask, “Grannie, why didn’t you just commercially space fly to Dubai, instead of backpacking there?” They will lovingly excuse or recoil in horror as they discover our primitive phobias. They will clutch their same-sex, human spouse as they learn that Gram Gram would not have approved. They will spit on our pictures as they uncover our subtle vestiges of racism. They will forgive us for our ignorance? They will vomit as they notice their grandpa’s plate stacked with dead animals.

Their grandchildren — our great-grandchildren, Arkz and Levynine — will scroll through our laughably obsolete Instagram/Facebook photo albums and curse our names, as the oceans rise and destroy the ruins of the majestic New York City and Los Angeles.

But their eyes will twinkle at our old flames and dance parties — their hearts will burst open with pride as they see our hard work, our legacy, and the foundation we made for them. They will cash their inheritance checks with great spite or great pain.

They will not wonder.

Our grandkids will realize that their grandparents were fallible humans. They will realize this faster than we did.